Books That Aren’t About Fit

Books that aren’t about fit is a weird topic for a post in a series on fit books, but these three books tend to come up a lot when you’re searching with terms like “fitting knits” and “customizing knits.” I wanted to include them so I could share with you what they’re about and hopefully prevent some rude surprises.

Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel is a pattern book that features mostly fitted, figure-hugging projects. It includes suggestions for choosing the best size and minor alterations, but this is as brief as you’d expect for a pattern book. That section takes up only three pages out of the whole thing, so it’s not a good choice if you’re looking for detailed fit information. It is a cute pattern book, though! I’ve owned it for a long time, and some of the earliest posts on Untangling Knots are about projects from this book.

Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard is also a pattern book! This one features mostly top-down sweaters which are easier to modify, and it does include a pinch of customization information. At the back of the book there’s information on altering the armhole depth, adding short-row “after thought” sleeves, going from a pullover to a cardigan, changing the neckline treatment, and playing with different edgings. It also gives nice overviews of three common top-down construction methods. But this only about 15% of Custom Knits, and the majority of the customization information is aimed at changing the look, not the fit. It’s a good book to own if you like the patterns or are interested in reading through a bunch of patterns using different top-down construction methods.

Last is Knitting the Perfect Fit: Essential Fully Fashioned Shaping Techniques for Designer Results by Melissa Leapman. The second half of the title tells you what this book is really about! It’s about using little details in interesting ways to work the shaping in a sweater. It includes different increases and some decorative stitches to pair with them, and it also has suggestions on how to position them to create unique lines. Knitting the Perfect Fit also has a lot of patterns. About 2/3rds of this book is made up of patterns.